Laura Nyro - Spread Your Wings And Fly: Live At The Filmore East, May 30, 1971 (rel. 2004)

A gorgeous, spellbinding concert recording of just voice and piano, from the final weeks of the Fillmore East.  And what a voice, and a clutch of great songs and cover versions - the genius of Laura Nyro really shines through the sometimes ropey recording quality.

The setlist touches on all three of her classic CBS albums, including the epic The Treasure from her then-newest LP Christmas And The Beads Of Sweat, and a lovely Emmie from Eli And The Thirteenth Confession.  It also looks forward to the forthcoming covers album Gonna Take A Miracle (link below) with some classic cover tunes (and more contemporary covers like The Five Stairsteps' O-o-h Child, which I've been listening to a lot in the last few weeks), and even to 1976's Smile with a soaring I Am The Blues.

The set even includes, as its bookends, two songs that don't appear on any other Laura Nyro release, with the opening Vietnam War lament American Dove giving the album its title.  Full kudos to the archival team who cleaned up this disintegrating tape - far from being just an interesting document of the era, it's pure nourishment for the soul.

link
pw: sgtg

Previously posted at SGTG: Gonna Take A Miracle, with Labelle